


all the better to eat you with (my dear)

by alpha-lobito (DeathByRoxas)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Big Bad Wolf - Freeform, Dark fairytales, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Red Riding Hood Elements, Reylo Week 2020, Suicidal Ideation, fairytales - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:34:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23922415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathByRoxas/pseuds/alpha-lobito
Summary: Rey prayed for mercy- for an escape from her cursed home- for peace and quiet- for fresh food and clean water- for the steady affection of her parents-And it was Kylo Ren, Wolf of the Wood, who answered her desperate call.With his gapping mouth-His sharp teeth-And his warm, quiet, dark belly.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26
Collections: REYLO WEEK 2020





	all the better to eat you with (my dear)

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Reylo week 2020 → Day Two: Mythology / Legends / Fairy Tales
> 
> This story will be dark. Tags will be updated as needed.

It was dark inside the wolf.

She didn’t imagine there to be light. Or a candle. Her only sense of her surroundings were her hands touching the wet insides of the wolf’s belly. Her knees knocked around the wet flesh as she tried her best to make herself smaller. The entire darkness slipped against her cheek. It heaved and breathed and rocked in rhythmic patterns unfamiliar to Rey. It wasn’t like being locked in the cellar. There were no crevices of light slipping though holes in the walls. No candle to keep her eyes and hands busy. No sign of sun or time. 

Just darkness, present and eternal.

It was quiet inside the wolf. 

She couldn’t hear distant yelling, and breaking of things, of drunken rummaging, or slurred insults. It was quieter than the cellar. No icy winds blowing through the cracks whistling an eerie tune that made her think of ghosts and witches. There were no snarls or growls, like she imagined at night when she planned her escape into the woods. He was polite, even- the wolf. He didn’t even maul her body with his massive teeth before he swallowed her whole. She found, very quickly, there was a steady heartbeat not too far from her ear. If she tucked into her side, and curled up just right, it was exactly like being cuddled feels like. Or really, what she imagined it feels like. 

It was nice.

It was warm inside the wolf.

Warm slimy wetness slips under her frozen fingers, tingling with the conflicting sensation of hot and cold. It seeps through her thin clothes- through the frost still clinging to the thin fabric. She can’t see the ridges of his belly that ripple under her shaking fingertips. Occasionally, it squeezes her body like a silken hug she hasn’t felt in years. She didn’t feel like an unsavored meal- she felt loved like a babe in the womb.

It doesn’t smell like anything worse than home. it doesn’t smell like rotting food or stale liquor or unkempt teeth that chewed through sour hallucinogenic herbs. It just smells like a warm wet cave that hasn’t seen fresh rain in a few days.

And still- It was so much better than home.

Of all the pleas Rey begged to the stars, to the statues, to the shrines- none had responded to her in kind. She had no signal no sign no self-assuredness that her world could improve. She prayed for mercy- for an escape from her cursed home- for peace and quiet- for fresh food and clean water- for the steady affection of her parents-

And it was Kylo Ren, Wolf of the Wood, who answered her desperate call.

With his gapping mouth-

His sharp teeth-

And his warm, quiet, _dark_ belly.

———

“Please mama! Papa!”

“Quiet brat!”

Long, loud, piercing wails echoed in the dark woods. The cool air nipped sharply at their noses, two red from drink, one from tears.

“Nooooo! Nonononon-“ a loud smack thugs against a small face.

“ _Shut it!_ ”

“ _I don’t want to die papa! Please! Mama please!_ ”

“Just pick a stupid Plutt tree and chain her already!”

Rey is dropped down on the ground, thrashing, breathing fast, unable to pull air in her tiny lungs. She sobs uncontrollably, pushing away at the man she called her father, pulling him close again when he shoves her off. 

The chains wrap unevenly around her neck and torso, but cuff tightly to the top of her arm. Rey pulls weakly, trying her best to ship them off to no avail.

Her parents step back, and she rushes towards them desperately. She’s stopped by the length of the chain. Slipping on the ice, Rey falls face first in the snow. She barely curls on her side as she sobs hysterically, unable to gather strength in her frozen arms.

“That’s a guaranteed thousand credits.” Her father points at Rey on the ground. He paces lightly around her, ignoring her whimpers. “The Jedi are _useless_ -” he spits. “But the Knights _will_ keep their word.”

“Rey please-“

“It’s the Jedi’s fault!” He kicks at a rock, pulling a small flask from under his cloak. He tips the whole thing back, and his wife reaches out quickly to pull it from his lips after the first swallow. She guzzles the pathetic rest. “They come ‘ere and what! Can’t hunt down a single rabid _wolf_!?” He yanks the flask right out of his wife’s mouth, cutting her lip in the process. 

“Bastard!” She dabs her split lip.

“That’s right! They’re _bastards_!” He tucks the empty container away. “They rather promise us some money if we lose one of our dear loved ones to the _Wolf of the Wood_ then risk _their necks_ to just ensure our safety.”

“That’s no guarantee.” Her mother wipes the corner of her mouth. “If they see those chains, they won’t give us nothing for Rey. They’ll see. They’ll hang us.” 

“They won’t find the chains. I’ll pick them up in the morning.” He grimaces at Rey’s crumpled form in the snow. He tosses a red cloak over her and she pulls it to her wiping her face.

“Papa! Un-Untie me!”

“And if Ren doesn’t show up?” Rey’s mother wraps the red cloak tighter around her. It traps her arms as she tries to pull closer to her mother, but the firm push knocks her to the divot at the base of the tree.

“You know of any wolves that choose to starve in the winter?” He pulls his wife away from Rey who sobs forlornly, watching them in a silent plea. “Ren will come. It’s a round moon- a hunt moon. Ren _will_ come. Then he’ll-“ he licks his lips and swallows the bile in his throat. “Then I’ll get the chains while you go to town. Make a fuss. The tracks will be proof enough. _And_ our word.”

His wife paces slowly towards Rey’s crying form. She’s given up the fight. Put up a harder one than when she’s placed in the cellar. 

“ _Rey._ ”

“ _Mamaaa! I want to go home!_ ” She hiccups as her mother pets the buns on her head.

“You can go home.“ Her mother sing-songs. “Of course you can go home. Just be a good girl.” She pulls the red hood over her head. “Can you be a good girl?”

“Yes!” Rey coughs through another set of tears. “I wanna go home!” Rey’s mother scratches harder at her neck, reaching further into her scalp and ears. She pulls Rey’s face close to hers, her rancid breath sour with gut rotting ale.

“ _Then let Ren eat you._ ” She whispers harshly. “Once he eats you, _then you can go home._ ” She releases Rey’s face, nodding. “Understand? Hmm?”

Rey’s face blanches. She doesn’t sob. Doesn’t speak. She barely breathes. She just shakes violently in the red cloak as her mother pushes her hard against the tree and walks away digging her hand under her scarf to claw at her shoulder.

“I need another fixing. Soon.” She tells her husband.

“Yeah. Yeah.” He doesn’t look back.

Rey is only 6 years old. But she knows what being eaten means. It means you go into the belly of the eater. It means you don’t come back.

It means you die.

She watches as her parents walk away from where she’s bound. All the adrenaline and emotion that pounded and rushed through her drain right through her skin and out her mouth in cloudy breaths.

“Come- come back!”

Her skin prickles and her toes quickly go numb. The cuff around her arm chills and burns her skin. She pulls hard against it, rubbing off frozen bark as she struggles to reach the shrinking image of her parents.

“ _Come back!_ ”

——————

The woods darken considerably in the hours that pass. But the moon rises like a sun and casts its own eerie light on the forest floor. Rey shivers under her cloak. Needles prick her hands or feet. Her breathing stutters painfully. She tries hard not to sleep, in case someone approaches and frees her from her chains. Then a snap of a branch and the crunching of snow hit her ears.

Her eyes barely make out the shapes of the trees, the leaves, the glowing pair of eyes that stare right at her.

_Oh_

Rey stands swiftly, her knees aching at the movement. 

“ _W-wait!_ ” She reaches out to the darkness surrounding the glowing brown eyes. “Are you- are you Ren?”

_**Who dares to speak my name so casually?**_ A deep rumbling voice drags across the ground from the glowing eyes. 

“Uh- I- I-“ 

_**Your name, girl.** _

“I’m Rey.”

_**Rey.** _

The dark form moves forward and grows and grows and grows inside until Rey has no choice but to crane her neck back to keep her eyes on his.

_Kylo Ren is huge._ Rey thinks. His maw opens slightly, glinting teeth bared under a snarling mouth.

_**Do I frighten you?**_ His lips don’t move when the words tumble out. Is he speaking in her mind? Is this just how wolves speak?

Ren watches as small puffs of breath escape from under Rey’s hood, laborious but steady as she shuffles carefully closer to him.

“No.”

Ren leans forward, his black snout blowing hot air on Rey’s frosted face. 

It’s a welcomed feeling.

Rey keeps her eyes on him. He’s just as massive as the adults described in the tavern. Hunters gathered round a hearth retelling their tales of meeting the fabled _Kylo Ren_ of the Ach-to Forest. 

_**You should be.** _

“Will you eat me?”

_**Perhaps.**_ Ren paces a small circle in front of her. _ **I don’t make it a habit to eat children.**_

“W-why not?” Rey’s teeth chatter through her words. 

Ren ponders for a moment, never moving his eyes from her.

_**They don’t taste very good.** _

And with that, Ren turns his massive body away, stepping back into the shadowed brush whence he came.

“No! Wait!” Rey called out. She rushed forward a few steps until the chain caught hard on her arm. She whimpered in pain. Her other hand caught Ren by the tips of the fur on his tail and yanks hard. 

Ren turns and roars a warning growl. His teeth are bared in all their glory this time. Long, white, and _sharp_. And so many of them. So so many teeth. Rey’s hand shakes as her knees lock in place and her heartbeat gallops in her small chest. 

“You- you need to eat me.” 

_**What?** _

“You need to eat me. So I can go home.”

_**Remove your hand you deranged CHILD. Lest I snap your arm with my TEETH.** _

“No!” Rey tugs again, swallowing her fear. Ren snarls and snaps his teeth at her wrist. Still, as a sob crawls heavily out of her chest, she doesn’t let go. “You need to eat me-“ She sniffs back her tears. “-so I can go _home_.”

_**Lunatic-** _

Ren pulls away, but her fist clenches harder. The movement stretches her arms apart, her red cloak slipping off the chain and cuff. 

“ _You have to!_ ” Rey screams.

Ren barks as he jerks his tail out of her grasp, bits of fur still clenched between her tiny blueish fingers. Ren’s eyes watch, wide, as Rey collapses on the snowy ground, one arm bent unnaturally behind her and moonlight glinting off the metal cuff on her arm. Her sobs turn to wails, then rapid heaving gasps, then finally shuttered speech. He hides out of her sight in the shadow of the trees.

“It’s what Mama said...” Rey quietly moans into the ground. “Mama said if you eat me I can go _home_!” Rey crawls into her frostless divot at the base of the Plutt tree. It’s her second defeat on her most miserable day. Heat falls off her cheeks in waves and melt the snow falling on her face. 

_**Do you understand what it means to be eaten?** _

Rey’s eyes open slightly and she stills. Ren is standing very close to her. She doesn’t dare look at him directly again. 

“Yes.” She whispers.

_**By a beast like me?** _

Rey swallows dryly and gathers her shaky words.

“ _Yes._ ”

_**It means you-** _

“ _It means I go home._ ” Rey looks straight into his deep brown eyes. She repeats herself firm and clear. “It means I go home.” Rey’s breath flows out of her- calm with a weight that exceed her age. She closes her eyes. 

“Please eat me.”

Ren doesn’t wait for Rey to open her eyes again. He just opens his mouth as wide as he can and swallows Rey whole.

His ears, as big and as sharp as his teeth, catch a soft warble that escapes his throat just before he closes his mouth.

_...thank you_

————————————————

It takes Kylo Ren just 12 hours to find the Shepherd’s son. His usual post is under the Juneberry Tree at the top of a generous hill where he watches his father’s sheep and cattle comfortably grazing on the dewy grass. But the snow has changed his schedule and he finds him with the older men, carrying axes and freshly chopped wood. He’s too young to wield one on his own, but he’s encouraged to participate all the same. 

Ren makes his way to the their encampment and makes a lazy show of rummaging his nose into their things. He meanders from bag to bag, sniffing at things uncaringly, when _finally_ the piss soaked watchman of the tents lets out a blood curling scream.

“ _KYLO REN!!! KYLO REN IS AT THE CAMPS!!”_

Ren watches the watcher scramble on the ground and pull things behind him, expecting Ren to give chase. Instead he stands and listens for the older (braver) men to rush to the commotion he’s drawn. 

He expected the axes. 

He didn’t expect the bowcasters. 

Ren makes his loose escape. Their arrows fly past him as their yells and screams trail quickly behind. But he follows his nose to the Shepherd’s son- Finn, he was once called- and rushes to corner him in a clearing.

Finn, young and frightened, picks up the nearest wooden pole. It’s pathetically thin, and the grip is all wrong, but Ren let’s him get a few good hits in, before he easily snaps the pole in half with a bite. 

Ren’s ear prick at the flurry of steps as the men rush closer. They are nearly there. He give’s Finn an opening- which he fails to take- then a second- when he hesitates too long and stretches Ren’s patience. 

_**Strike now** _

Finn stabs the pointed broken end into Ren’s ribs before jumping back. The broken pointed end is smeared with blood nearly makes him faint.

Ren curls his stomach in, arches his back, and hacks a loud hurl that forces a wet mass to to tumble out of his mouth and onto the ground before them. The men quickly surround him and he takes the briefest moment to look. She’s disgusting- covered in slime and unmoving. So saturated was her red cloak that it darkened to near black. He only catches the slight rise and fall of a single breath shudder out of little Rey before he lunges over Finn’s head and runs back into the forest in a beastly sprint.

**Author's Note:**

> I read one (short) manga where a child begs a wolf to eat him to absolve him of his suffering, and I never get over it apparently. It’s been with me through every fandom I’ve been in. It finally just clicked with Rey’s canon tragic past and Day 2 of Reylo Week 2020.
> 
> Happy Reylo Week!
> 
> (Sorry I’m Late!)


End file.
